Net Ensnares Cheaters in Tangled Web

By David Koeppel

Adultery was once kept a secret. Not online.

The Internet dating (search) craze is blazing a trail of broken marriages, thanks to dozens of sites inviting participants to identify themselves as "not so happily married," "married but that shouldn't matter" or even the seemingly archaic, "married but we swing."
Studies show some 30 percent of online dating visitors are married - and recent research by the University of Florida (search) reports that what starts out as flirting and cybersex quickly escalates into the real thing.

The Internet became an easy escape for "Beth," a 43-year-old married New Yorker who dated about 60 men in three years until she met Steve, who's also married -- but now sneaking around with Beth.

"We see each other once or twice a week," she says. "We have a lot in common, have a great time together and the sex is phenomenal."

She says a cold husband sent her surfing for more. "There was no warmth or any physical affection," she says glumly.

She tried cajoling her husband into seeing a marriage counselor, but after only one visit, he refused to return. She didn't want a divorce because of their 10-year-old daughter, so she posted an ad online.

"I'm not interested in jeopardizing my marriage or anyone else's," she said. "I just wanted to find someone special I could click with."

Other women interviewed say they've been searching for deeper emotional relationships than their husbands are able to give -- but aren't ready to leave.

"I guess the sex just isn't what it used to be when we first met," says Nicole, 28, a married New Yorker who's listed her profile online. "I miss the feeling of sex being new and exciting. It's addicting."

Addiction is something that Chris Samuels, the co-director of a sexual addiction treatment center, understands all too well. She has treated many married and unmarried patients who've gotten caught up in Internet lust.

"Its power is almost trance-inducing," she says. "You can troll these sites and have a fantasy ready and waiting. Cybersex can provide a quick and powerful high. It's like crack cocaine to sex addicts."

(IT IS TRANCE INDUCING - STAY AWAY!!!!!!)
 

Alfred, 49, is a self-described Internet Lothario who says he's been "swinging" for 23 years.

Before going online, he would post ads in "swinger magazines," sometimes waiting two to four months to set up a first meeting.

Now his desires can be gratified almost instantly by posting ads on the Internet.

"While I'm open to a relationship, I'd prefer someone I can meet for no-strings mutual sexual pleasure on a continuing basis," he says.

Alfred's new online ads generally attract several interested women ("I'm a seller in a buyer's market," he says proudly).

He usually hooks up with married women, but says there are plenty of singles who don't mind that he's already spoken for.

Unfortunately, while these spouses are sowing their wild oats, there's likely to be someone at home who's getting hurt.
John LaSage, 43, from California, could attest to that -- his wife left him and his two teenage daughters to take off with an Internet boyfriend.

The experience led him to create chatcheaters.com -- a Web site designed to help dissuade potential cheaters and to comfort those who've been hurt by them.

"Chatting is OK, cheating is not," says LaSage.

"People should realize how quickly relationships can form online. Flirting can lead to real-world affairs."

If you suspect your spouse of having an online affair, "Bring the issue out into the open," he says.

"Look out for the warning signs" -- like excessive Internet use, new email accounts, turning off the computer when you walk in the room.
Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington and the relationships expert for online dating site Perfectmatch.com, says married men are much more likely to say they're just looking for sex than married women, but ultimately the search is about loneliness.

"... It's about gratification," she said. "They want someone to find them attractive, someone to want them passionately."

But not every married person who's gone the online route has found the affair of their dreams.

Wayne, a 49-year-old man from New Jersey, complains that his inbox is usually cluttered with undesirable partners and a fair share of transsexuals and cross-dressers.

But that may be just the ticket for 34-year-old "Rockerdude" of New York City, who advertises online that he's hoping to make sweet music with men, women -- and anything in between.

"Yes, I am married, but we have a very liberal, open-minded relationship," he writes.

With additional reporting by Michael Shashoua

ONLINE DATING ATTRACTS MARRIED FOLKS

ONLINE DATING VIRTUALLY IRRESISTIBLE TO SOME MARRIED FOLKS
Oh, what a tangled Web is weaved as rapidly growing numbers of married people sneak into Internet chat rooms for romantic or sexual thrills they think they aren't getting from their spouses, a new University of Florida study finds.

"Never before has the dating world been so handy for married men and women looking for a fling,"said Beatriz Avila Mileham, who conducted the research for her doctoral dissertation in counselor education at UF. "With cybersex, there is no longer any need for secret trips to obscure motels. An online liaison may even take place in the same room with one's spouse."

In the words of one 41-year-old man in the study, "All I have to do is turn on my computer, and I have thousands of women to choose from. (It) can't get any easier than that."

Counseling organizations report chat rooms and instant messaging are the fastest-rising cause of relationship breakdowns, and the problem only stands to get worse as today's population of Internet users, estimated at 649 million worldwide, continues to grow, Mileham said.

"The Internet will soon become the most common form of infidelity, if it isn't already," she said.

Unlike some fatal attractions, a simple click of a mouse button ends contact - should the person want to break it off - without any explanations or apologies, she said.

In 2002, Mileham conducted in-depth online interviews with 76 men and 10 women, ages 25 to 66, who used Yahoo's "Married and Flirting" or Microsoft's "Married But Flirting," Internet chat rooms geared specifically for married people. The study's participants, who represented every state, included stay-at-home mothers, construction workers, engineers, nurses and presidents of large corporations.

Some went online for a quick "sex fix," while others established more meaningful connections where they talked about personal problems, marital issues and things like that, Mileham said. Others hoped to have a real-life affair. Still others wanted to engage in cybersex, exchanging sexual fantasies with someone while masturbating, she said.


The vast majority said they loved their spouses but sought an erotic encounter online because of boredom, a partner's lack of sexual interest or the need for variety and fun, Mileham said.

"I'm not going to cheat," wrote one married man. "I'm just capturing back some of those butterflies we feel when we're young and start flirting and dating."

"The No. 1 complaint from men was lack of sex in the marriage," Mileham said. "Many of them said their wife was so involved in childrearing that she wasn't interested in having sex."

Because there is no touching involved in online chat conversations, married people often rationalize their behavior as harmless fun, Mileham said. Eighty-three percent of the study's participants said they did not consider themselves to be cheating, and the remaining 17 percent deemed it a "weak" form of infidelity that was easily justifiable, she said.

Other research has shown, however, that most spouses feel as betrayed, angry and hurt by online infidelity as they would if skin-to-skin adultery had taken place, she said.

The UF study found an escalating quality to these online contacts. Many reported that what started as innocent, friendly exchanges progressed quickly to strong desires for sexual relationships, she said.

Twenty-six of the 86 study participants went on to meet the person whom they had been engaged in an online relationship with, and of these, all but two ended up having a real-life affair. One 66-year-old man ended up having 13 affairs this way, she said.

Research shows that more males than females use chat rooms, said Mileham, who found it difficult to get women to respond to her survey. Females are usually bombarded with messages and can pick and choose which messages they respond to, she said.

Al Cooper, a leading expert in the field of Internet sexuality and the author of the book "Sex and the Internet: A Guidebook for Clinicians," said Mileham's research is important in helping to understand this increasingly common phenomenon.

"We are hearing from therapists around the country reporting online sexual activity to be a major cause of marital problems," Cooper said. "We need to better understand the contributing factors if we are going to be able to warn people about the slippery slope that starts with online flirting and too often ends in divorce."

With the exception of two of the study's participants, all hid their online activities from their spouses, often "chatting" after their husbands or wives had gone to sleep, Mileham said. But some used this form of effortless escapism while their spouse was in the room, she said.

Said one such man, "While I'm on the computer my wife just assumes I'm writing a report for work." Another man said his wife, who knew what he was doing and didn’t like it, looked over his shoulder sometimes while he was typing, Mileham said.

Much of the Internet's appeal to married people is the anonymity it guarantees, coupled with the no-touching aspect, which they view as a license to be sexual, Mileham said. One can reveal the most intimate emotional and sexual details to an unseen stranger at any time of the day or night, she said.

Several participants indicated they divulged more about themselves to online partners than to their wives or husbands.

"We started chatting about life, our marriage, what we like to eat, what sexual positions we like the best," wrote one man to Mileham. "I felt like I've known her in another life."

Mileham believes the time has come for the Internet to become as essential a part of pre-marital discussions as is whether or not to have children. "To prevent future problems, young couples, as well as long-term committed couples, need to talk about what role the Internet will play in their relationship."

- Cathy Keen

THIS WOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE IF THIS WAS IN PLACE!! CLICK HERE

IS INTERNET ADDICTION REAL?

More research is being conducted to explore the way people use--and misuse--the Internet.

BY TORI DeANGELIS

If you believe what you read, "Internet addiction" is about to make us a nation of derelicts. Men drooling over online pornography, women abandoning their husbands for chat-room lovers and people losing their life savings on gambling Web sites are just a few of the stories peddled in today's press.

But despite the topic's prominence, published studies on Internet addiction are scarce. Most are surveys, marred by self-selecting samples and no control groups. The rest are theoretical papers that speculate on the philosophical aspects of Internet addiction but provide no data.

Meanwhile, many psychologists even doubt that addiction is the right term to describe what happens to people when they spend too much time online.

"It seems misleading to characterize behaviors as 'addictions' on the basis that people say they do too much of them," says Sara Kiesler, PhD, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of one of the only controlled studies on Internet usage, published in the September 1998 American Psychologist. "No research has yet established that there is a disorder of Internet addiction that is separable from problems such as loneliness or problem gambling, or that a passion for using the Internet is long-lasting."

But more psychologists are plunging into Internet addiction research, fascinated by its emotional, psychological and social implications. In their work, they are finding a subset of people who spend so much time online, especially in sexual encounters, that they report problems in their marriages, families and work.

In addition, researchers speculate that certain unique aspects of the Internet may lure people into trouble they might otherwise avoid.

"The Internet is unlike anything we've seen before," says David Greenfield, PhD, founder of the Center for Internet Studies. "It's a socially connecting device that's socially isolating at the same time."

Who's vulnerable?
Greenfield has conducted one of the largest surveys on the topic to date: a 1998 study of 18,000 Internet users who logged onto the ABC News Web site. He found that 5.7 percent of his sample met the criteria for compulsive Internet use. Those findings square with figures from smaller studies done by others, which range from 6 percent to 14 percent. Study participants who met Greenfield's criteria (adapted from criteria for compulsive gambling) were particularly hooked on chat rooms, pornography, online shopping and e-mail, he found. About a third said they use the Internet as a form of escape or to alter their mood on a regular basis.

In addition, the "addicted" people were far more likely to admit feelings of losing control in their dealings on the Net than "nonaddicts." Greenfield believes that the loss of control is just one indication of the potency of the psychoactive nature of the Internet. Other signs include time distortion, accelerated intimacy and decreased inhibition. For instance, 83 percent of those who fit the addiction criteria reported a loss of boundaries when they used the Net, compared to 37 percent who didn't meet the criteria.

Meanwhile, 75 percent of "addicts" said they had gained "feelings of intimacy" for someone they'd met online, compared to 38 percent of "nonaddicts." Of those who met Greenfield's criteria for Internet addiction, 62 percent said they regularly logged on to pornography sites, spending an average of four hours a week viewing the material. And 37.5 percent of that group masturbated while online, they said.

"Regardless of the technical definition of Internet addiction, there is clearly something unique and powerful going on here," Greenfield says. "The most widely affected areas seem to be marriages and relationships due to compulsive pornography, cybersex and cyberaffairs."

Chat rooms and porn sites
Many studies, including Greenfield's, also report a preponderance of male Internet addicts. In an unpublished study of 1,300 college students by Keith Anderson, PhD, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 91 of the 103 students who met his criteria for "Internet dependence" were male.

But other studies, including one of the first studies on Internet addiction, by Kimberly Young, PhD, find that women are addicted as often as men--just in different ways. Young, who treats people with Internet problems, is executive director of the Center for On-line Addiction (www.netaddiction.com), founded in 1995. Hers is the first behavioral health-care firm to specialize in Internet-related disorders, offering outpatient and online treatment.

Men and women "addicts" seem to prefer sites that fit behavioral stereotypes of their own gender, according to a study by Alvin Cooper, PhD, and colleagues in the March 2000 issue of Sexual Addiction and Compulsion: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. Their research--which is the only analysis to specifically focus on Internet sexuality--found that women were more likely to spend time flirting or having "cybersex" with others in sexually oriented chat rooms, while men were drawn to porn Web sites.

"Men prefer visual stimuli and more focused sexual experiences, while women are more interested in relationships and interactions," says Cooper, who is training coordinator at Stanford University's counseling and psychological services center, Cowell Student Health Center.

In a study in the May 1998 issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Cooper also found that more than 91 percent of Internet users spent less than 11 hours a week logging on to sexual sites. About 82 percent spent less than an hour doing so, "with very few negative repercussions," he says. (Full text of these research articles appears here.)

But men and women "addicts" who spent the most time each week online--11 hours or more--said it was their chat room behavior that most interfered with important aspects of their lives. Cooper will investigate further exactly what those problems are, such as whether online sexuality leads to sex offline, why people might go online when they're already in a sexual relationship and how such compulsion affects people's home and work lives.

The Internet also seems to invite both genders to experiment in ways they might otherwise not, Cooper finds. A full 12 percent of women in his sample of 9,265 respondents, compared with 20 percent of the men, have accessed pornography at least once. Cooper speculates that women who visit porn sites may "just be experimenting and wanting to see what the big deal is."

The available research leads psychologists to question whether those involved in cybersex have sexual addictions, or whether they otherwise wouldn't engage in illicit sexual encounters but find the Internet an easy medium in which to experiment.

Cooper labels about 17 percent of his sample "at-risk" users--people who "wouldn't otherwise have gotten involved with sexuality in a problematic way, were it not for the Internet." Certain qualities of the Internet--its accessibility, affordability and anonymity--make it more difficult to resist the temptation of online sex, Cooper believes.

But for now, this and other questions about Internet use will remain unanswered until more controlled studies are done, critics say. An article in the Feb. 4 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education outlined what those studies should investigate. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute psychologists Joseph B. Walther, PhD, and Larry D. Reid, PhD, suggest that future research include:

* An empirical look not just at problem use, but at healthy use as well.

* More theory and research on why the Internet compared with other outlets is so attractive to some people.

* More study of which comes first, Internet "addiction" or previous mental health or social problems.

It's also important to examine whether people's Internet use ebbs and flows over time and why, Kiesler and colleagues note.

Tori DeAngelis is a writer in Syracuse, N.Y.

COUPLE TO DIVORCE AFTER "ONLINE AFFAIR"

A Bosnian couple are getting divorced after finding out they had been secretly chatting each other up online under fake names.

Sana Klaric, 27, and husband Adnan, 32, from Zenica, poured out their hearts to each other over their marriage troubles, and both felt they had found their real soul mate.

The couple met on an online chat forum while he was at work and she in an internet cafe, and started chatting under the names Sweetie and Prince of Joy.

They eventually decided to meet up - but there was no happy ending when they realised what had happened.

Now they are both filing for divorce - with each accusing the other of being unfaithful.

Sana said: "I thought I had found the love of my life. The way this Prince of Joy spoke to me, the things he wrote, the tenderness in every expression was something I had never had in my marriage.

"It was amazing, we seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriages - and how right that turned out to be.

"We arranged to meet outside a shop and both of us would be carrying a single rose so we would know the other.

"When I saw my husband there with the rose and it dawned on me what had happened I was shattered. I felt so betrayed. I was so angry."

Adnan said: "I was so happy to have found a woman who finally understood me. Then it turned out that I hadn't found anyone new at all.

"To be honest I still find it hard to believe that the person, Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things to me on the internet, is actually the same woman I married and who has not said a nice word to me for years."

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